The Villages ditches plans for new interchange

Thursday

Jun 15, 2017 at 9:00 AMJun 15, 2017 at 9:28 AM

By Frank Stanfield / Correspondent

THE VILLAGES — The Villages is ditching plans to build an interchange at County Road 468 and Florida’s Turnpike.

An access ramp would hinder “a series of planning actions of several of the agencies to create north/south and east/west roads in the southern Wildwood area,” a representative of The Villages said in a June 8 letter to Turnpike administrator Jennifer Stults.

Villages Vice President and spokesman Gary Lester could not be reached for comment.

An engineering study for The Villages once dubbed the interchange “vital.” Kimley-Horn & Associates projected that the tri-county retirement community would balloon to 770,000 people by the year 2020.

It foresaw Morse Boulevard being extended south to connect with State Road 44 at the existing intersection of SR 44 and CR 468. “This extension will provide a continuous four-lane divided roadway connection between US 27/441 in the northeastern portion of The Villages and SR 44 east of Wildwood …. ”

Planners originally expected more industrial than residential growth along the Turnpike, in Leesburg. The city last month agreed to sell 1,938 acres once envisioned for industry to The Villages for construction of 4,500 homes. The land is south of CR 468 at County Road 470 and the Turnpike.

“There are thousands and thousands and thousands of homes being sold [by The Villages],” said Richard Baier, assistant Sumter County administrator and public works director.

That includes homes in Wildwood in the Villages of Fenney and Southern Oaks and in Fruitland Park.

“We need to look at the most crucial transportation needs, then the transportation dollars,” Baier said.

The Department of Transportation and other traffic agencies take several things into consideration in planning, including industrial needs. In Sumter, that is the area of Interstate 75 and County Road 514. Truckers need access from the 16.3-million-square-foot Monarch Ranch industrial site and the 1.9-million-square-foot Wade Industrial Park, recently purchased by The Villages, Baier said.

Meanwhile, despite receiving a letter from a law firm saying The Villages wants to abandon plans for the CR 468 interchange, “it doesn’t preclude any future interchange,” Stults said.

The bridge over CR 468 has already been widened.

The Villages was to bear much of the brunt of the cost of building an interchange. It purchased the land and then sold it to Sumter County.

Other improvements are slated for the Turnpike itself, Stults said, including widening lanes in the stretch that runs through Lake County toward Orlando. That work will be done in phases from 2020 through 2026.

“As a consequence, neither the county nor The Villages is currently interested in continuing either a requirement or option of an interchange at that location,” wrote Nancy Linnan of the Carlton Fields law firm in Tallahassee.

Sumter County officials agree.

But a June 8 letter to Florida Turnpike administrator Jennifer Stults from a law firm representing The Villages states that local officials no longer are interested in developing the interchange.

Sumter County Administrator Bradley Arnold said a recent county transportation study “shows (the interchange) is not warranted,” especially with a proposed $36-million extension of Buena Vista Boulevard between SR 44 and CR 468.

A study done several years ago by Kimley Horn & Associates Inc. of Ocala said the new interchange was needed because the population of the tri-county area of Sumter, Lake and Marion counties was expected to reach 770,000 by 2020.